Susannah slid onto the trunk next to him and stroked his back with slow, even pressure, as if he were a wounded animal. “Did you sleep at all?”
Jesse picked up the leather drawstring purse at his elbow and tossed it across the table. It landed with a soft clink on the back page of the Fargo Express, the listing of current prices. Penciled calculations covered the newspaper’s margins.
“Thought I’d have smooth sailing once I gave up drinking. Thought I could support a wife and children. Thought I was working hard enough, praying hard enough.” He reached for the Bible, opening to a place bookmarked by his ledger. “‘But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.’”
He slammed the book shut and hit the table with his palm. “I want to take care of my family. What am I doing wrong?”
Susannah clutched her arms against a sudden chill. She had never seen Jesse so beaten down. “Didn’t you tell me God would provide? Where’s the verse about how He clothes the lilies and feeds the birds?”
“In the same chapter telling us to give alms. But I can’t provide for you, much less help the poor. Maybe our Promised Land is somewhere else. Maybe we should do a Prodigal Son, go back to New York, see if my brother-in-law needs a hired hand.” He ground his forehead into his fist. “I’m getting too old to start over. Nothing to show for all these years of hard work.”
Susannah clenched her hands. If only she had money. “What about selling the calves? Or the chickens? Maybe Matt’s found my inheritance.”
He wasn’t listening. “I’ll go to Fargo, see if I can pick up enough work to get us through the winter.”
“Fargo? But the animals—”
He pushed past her, almost knocking over the table. “You know more about them than I do.”
“Wait. You’re leaving me?”
“I don’t have a choice. If it’s just me, I can sleep in a barn, not pay for a hotel room. You stay here and keep the homestead going, keep the claim jumpers out. Not that anyone’d want this place—”
“There must be another way. Perhaps Mr. McFadgen—”
“I’ll write every week, send you all the money I can.” He stomped around the soddy, stuffing pants and shirts into his knapsack. “I’ll be back soon as I earn enough to get us through.”
“What about trapping?”
“I won’t let you starve.” He reached for her, pulling her to his shoulder. “I’ll leave Jake and the shotgun. You’ll be all right.”
Overnight the wind picked up, taking the grasshoppers with it. The destruction reminded Susannah of Mathew Brady’s photographs of the South after the War. No leaf, no plant in the garden had escaped. Not a stalk of wheat or oats remained. Flat clouds covered the sky like a granite slab over a grave.
On their ride to town, Susannah held back from telling Jesse how much she’d miss him. She wouldn’t admit how worried she was, wouldn’t ask what they’d do if he didn’t find work.
Jesse didn’t speak until they arrived at the Volds’. “Something’s wrong. No smoke from the stovepipe and the oxen aren’t picketed.”
“Marta? Ivar?” Swarms of flies covered the house, as thick as yesterday’s grasshoppers. Ignoring Jesse’s warning about disease, Susannah jumped from the wagon and yanked open the door. Just as quickly she shut it, gasping for fresh air. Mastering her stomach and swatting flies, she stepped over the threshold. “Hello?” She threaded her way past a full chamber pot and bucket and a dead animal that on closer inspection turned out to be a pile of used diapers.
“Ja,” Ivar answered from the bed. “We half been up all night. Spoiled sausage. New people north of the tracks bring it. Marta and Sara sleep just now.” Ivar nodded at the baby curled between him and his wife. “How is it you happen to come?”
“We’re on our way to Worthington.” Susannah touched his forehead. Cool. “Shall I ask Jesse to order grain for you too?”
Ivar groaned. “The grasshoppers. Ja, I need grain.”
She found Jesse watering Ivar’s oxen. As she had at their own homestead, she built a brush dam upstream to filter the creek of dead grasshoppers.
“Susannah, you’re too smart for this life.” Jesse nodded toward the soddy. “How are they?”
“It’s been a rough night.” She filled a bucket with the water, coffee brown from grasshopper excrement. “They’re dehydrated, weak. I should stay, make sure they get back on their feet.”
For a moment he climbed out of his pain, his hazel eyes studying hers. “Don’t catch it. I won’t be here to take care of you.”
“It’s not contagious. It was bad meat.” Susannah laid her palm on his cheek, its stubble testifying to Jesse’s low spirits. “How can I bear a day apart from you?”
A hint of a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. “Better to say good-bye here without Mrs. Rose looking on. I’ll have one of the boys bring the wagon back.” He pulled her to his chest with painful fierceness. “I promise you. It won’t be our animals and furniture getting auctioned off, us getting driven into Fargo, begging on the streets. I won’t let it.”
She watched until the wagon disappeared over the rise. “Hurry home.”
The last load of diapers flapped on the clothesline, and Ivar and Marta sat at the table sipping ginger tea, when the wagon rattled into the draw. Susannah tucked the clean sheets around the mattress and went out to meet it. The wagon was empty.
“Bye!”
A hundred yards away a boy, one of the Roses, leaped like a jackrabbit through the big bluestem toward the north. Susannah stretched to peer into the wagon box. Empty. The wind crackled a paper rolled up in the rifle scabbard. She flattened the brown scrap and held the pencil-scribbled words to the sunlight.
Mac says carpenters needed over to Jamestown. —J.M.
She had allowed herself to hope that Jesse wouldn’t have to go, that somehow God would come through for them. And now that hope shattered in her chest and pierced her heart.
The wind swirled a dust devil across the empty field. A killdeer crested the hill on its toothpick legs, then flapped away with a plaintive call. She dried a tear she didn’t remember crying.
Ivar staggered from the soddy and propped himself on the box of the wagon. “Where is Jesse?”
Susannah focused on the smoke from the stovepipe vanishing into the overcast. She swallowed down the lump in her throat. “Gone to Jamestown. To look for work.”
“Grasshoppers. We won’t be able to send money to Norway this year. My brother was hoping to emigrate.” Ivar launched into Norwegian, a stream of words Susannah didn’t understand but knew Marta would have disapproved of. The man raged on, trying to wall off his distress with fury. Finally he ran out of steam and switched back to English. “There’s work in Jamestown?”
“He hopes.”
Ivar kicked at the dirt. “He ever tell you how he came to Dakota? His little sister married and he decided he wasn’t needed at home. So he hopped the train west. Didn’t come to his senses until he hit Chicago.”
“Sometimes he thinks he’s still fighting the War,” she said.
Ivar nodded, grim. “That’s why so many of us drink.”
Alcohol. Something else to worry about. If only she’d brought a dowry, something more than four dollars. If only—
No. Jesse had told her to stop taking the blame for everything. She didn’t know who to blame for the grasshoppers, but they weren’t her fault.
The sun teased the horizon. This was no time to dissolve into a puddle. Jesse was counting on her. Susannah stomped over to the clothesline and yanked down the laundry. “I’d best be going. Keep Sara on ginger tea for tonight. Sweeten it with honey or white sugar but not brown.”
Ivar followed her to the end of the clothesline. “You cannot go back to Jesse’s by yourself. You must stay here.”
“And learn to swear in Norwegian?” Susannah shoved the stack of diapers at him. Much as she liked the Volds, she had no intention of squeezing in
with them. She needed time alone, time to cry and scream and, if possible, think. “I’ll bring in your oxen.”
“I’m sorry about swearing.” Ivar balanced the diapers. “You cannot go. Is not safe for a woman alone. We make room for you.”
Susannah jerked up the picket pins and herded Ivar’s team to the creek. “I’ve got cattle, chickens, and a dog to care for.”
“You charmed the moccasins off Sees-the-Tatanka, but maybe you not so lucky with the next Indian. What if he doesn’t know French? Or won’t let you talk before scalping you?”
She stopped at the clear space below her makeshift dam. “Jesse took his Winchester but left me the shotgun.”
Ivar watched her shovel out the area upstream. “What’s this?” He tapped his boot against the branches.
“I tried it on our creek. The water may not taste better, but at least you don’t have to chew it.”
He watched a few minutes before turning back to the soddy. “Go back to Jesse’s, then. You don’t need my help.”
When she came in sight of the homestead, Jake appeared and joined Susannah on the wagon seat. She put her arm around the dog’s neck. “I’m glad of your company.”
The oxen slowed to a stop by the shed. “All right, show me how to unhitch the team,” she said to Jake. The dog just grinned at her and panted. “I see. You’d rather sit up here and watch me make mistakes. Sure, you’ve got the best seat in the house.”
Susannah climbed down and unfastened the bows. With a grunt she lifted the yoke, found it too heavy, and returned it to its position. She changed her grip, lugged it over the back of one animal and the horns of the other, and eased the weight onto her shoulder. She stepped into something slippery and her feet shot out from under her. She landed hard. The yoke whacked her ear and thudded onto her shoulder. The world darkened and spun.
“Darn it! Now I’m swearing.” Susannah rubbed her sore head. “Jesse,” she yelled at the setting sun, “you get back here right now! I came out here to marry a safe, dependable farmer, not an itinerant carpenter. This is not fair! You can’t leave just as I find I can’t live without you.”
Despite her best efforts, the tears came. “I can’t do this by myself. God, I need help!”
Pa Ox took the opportunity to sneeze on her.
“That’s not what I had in mind.” She shoved his nose away and rotated her right arm. Nothing broken. Manure caked her skirts and saturated her petticoats; she had slipped on a cow pie.
“Well, oxen, you know where the water is. Go on.”
She scrambled to her feet and slapped them on the flanks, then glared at the watching dog. “Next time you unhitch, and I’ll sit and laugh.”
He wagged his tail.
The land west of Worthington was as empty as Jesse’s pockets. The farther the train went, the shorter the grass grew. Homesteading out here would be nigh impossible. Not that it was easy along the Sheyenne. Rotten, stinking grasshoppers.
He got off at Jamestown and waved good-bye to the half dozen greenhorn soldiers heading to Fort Lincoln. “God be with you,” he muttered, “because He surely isn’t billeting with me.”
Whoa. Where’d that thought come from? Sorry, God. I know You’re here. Somewhere . . .
He swabbed the sweat from his forehead. Now, something for this dry throat.
“Hey!” A man in dire need of a barber crawled out from under the platform. “You seen my wife?”
“No, sir. Just off the train.” Jamestown was a handful of buildings facing the tracks. Not many places to hole up.
“You sure?” The man staggered close, bringing with him the familiar miasma of sweated rotgut. No wonder his wife had gone into hiding. “Betsy’s her name. Stands ’bout this high.” He held up a hand. “Red hair, like yours. You related?”
“No Betsys in my family. If I see her, who should I say is looking for her?” Who should she run from?
“William Stapleton. Her husband.” He pointed to a single-story building at the end of the row, almost losing his balance in the effort. “Say, how about a drink?”
“They have coffee? Easier to find her when you’re sober.”
Stapleton’s hands clenched into fists but wouldn’t stay closed long enough to throw a punch. “Ya don’t know nuthin’.”
“I know Who can help you stop drinking.”
“No call for that.” Stapleton lurched toward the saloon, yelling, “Betsy!” in a tone that would make hogs run and glass break.
Jesse hefted his guitar onto one shoulder and his knapsack to the other. He crossed the stage road and passed a few log buildings at the base of the hill, the start of the fort, then began the long climb in the hot sun.
William Stapleton. What a mess. A real familiar mess. Maybe even a warning sign from God? He paused to drain his canteen. Warm water never tasted so good. Thank You, Lord. Now all he needed was work.
A scrawny kid with a carbine stepped out of the guardhouse. “Halt!” he said, his voice breaking.
Jesse held the Winchester so the boy could see it wasn’t loaded and introduced himself. “Captain Bates around?”
“Probably in the company office.” The boy pointed. “Or officers’ quarters.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The kid startled. Guess no one had ever called him sir.
Jesse crossed the parade grounds under the snapping flag. He’d hate to pull sentry duty out here in the winter. He’d be gone by then, back to Susannah. He hoped.
Jesse knocked on the office door.
The captain held an official-looking correspondence up to the window. “Enter. Double time if you’re selling spectacles.”
“Sold my last pair to your sentry when he shot me for a hostile.”
The captain dropped the letter and smiled. “Mason. You finally decided to accept my invitation. Welcome to Fort Seward.”
“Good to see you.” Jesse pumped his sweating hand. “I was afraid you’d finished your enlistment or headed for a warmer post.”
“It wouldn’t be the army if it wasn’t awful. What do you think of my new quarters? Drop your load behind my desk and I’ll give you a tour.” Bates led him out onto the veranda. “How about this view? Miles of nothing.”
The land dropped away south to the tracks, east to the James River, west to Pipestem Creek. “No one can sneak up on you.”
“But every stick of firewood has to be hauled up the hill,” Bates said with a wry smile. “The men often speak of you, the only settler between Ransom and here.” Several greeted them as the captain toured Jesse past the barracks, laundresses’ quarters, kitchen, mess room, storeroom, washroom, and hospital. The buildings were frame, with tarred paper lining the clapboard and paper plastering boards on the interior. The way Jesse would build for Susannah. If he ever had money.
The place seemed sparsely populated, plenty of room for an extra carpenter. “How many men you got?”
“Fifty-six enlisted and three officers. We have an eight-acre garden on the bottom land. Hunting and grazing are poor, so meat’s shipped in. Speaking of which, how about some chow?”
The meal featured corn grown at the fort. “As good as yours?” Bates asked.
“The grasshoppers loved it.”
The captain winced. “No way to bell that cat.”
Jesse figured he might as well get to the point. “So I’m looking for work.”
“Sorry to say, there’s no work and no money to pay you if we did. I hear Bismarck’s booming. Custer’s building his kingdom at Fort Lincoln.”
Jesse looked at his plate. He should eat. Who knew when he’d have another meal like this?
Bates slapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, you brought your guitar. Let’s have some music this evening, then pass the hat.”
That night Jesse sang every song he knew and several he didn’t. The hat yielded a brass button, an eagle’s feather, and a little over nine dollars, five of which had been provided by Captain Bates.
Nowhere near enough.
Susa
nnah washed the dishes from her first meal alone, yesterday’s cornbread and a slice of salt pork. Cooking for one was hardly worth the effort, especially when her shoulder and ear were still sore from the yoke.
As the light changed outside, it threw rose-colored trapeziums on the plastered east wall and blue shadows along the creek. Susannah followed the sunbeam to the rise behind the soddy. The stratus layer pulled away from the western horizon, and the sun painted a band of honey-colored light between the deep violet sky and navy land. It reminded Susannah of the theater, the stage lights glowing beneath the curtain.
If she were onstage, Susannah wished the Playwright would give her a look at the script.
Chapter 24
Jesus, I thought I understood Your plan.
Doesn’t make any sense to give me a wife, then
take away my means to provide for her.
Susannah pushed the quilts back. Last night sleep had rolled over her like a locomotive, heavy and unstoppable. She dreamed of warm, calloused fingers working through the layers of her clothes, caressing her tender places. An hour before dawn the wind banged the stovepipe, jerking her awake and reminding her Jesse was gone.
Heartache fought fatigue and won.
“Guess that’s enough pretending to sleep. How about you?” she asked Jake. Susannah had brought him inside for company. Talking to him seemed slightly more sane than talking to herself.
Jake’s triangular ears twitched at her words. He had spent the week on full alert, pacing, listening for his master, following at Susannah’s heels even on trips to the outhouse. Now he laid his head on his paws and sighed.
Susannah shuffled to the stove. The empty wood box, evidence of her lethargy, stared back at her. “Jesse’s job,” she mumbled. Anger stabbed through her sadness.
Susannah tossed a shawl around her shoulders and wandered out to the depleted woodpile. She inhaled fresh air. The rain had dissipated the grasshopper stench. Or maybe she’d just gotten used to it.
Any minute now Jesse would come striding down the ridge, wind billowing the sky blue shirt she’d sewn for him. She’d run to meet him and he’d catch her up, spinning her in a circle. He would have found a good job, earned enough, and headed for home, never to leave again.
Spring for Susannah Page 20